Re: more patents on interval arithmetic implementations
> Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:27:34 +0100
> From: Ulrich Kulisch <Ulrich.Kulisch@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: Arnold Neumaier <Arnold.Neumaier@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> CC: Bob.Davis@xxxxxxx, 1788 <stds-1788@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> interval <reliable_computing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, m.zaman@xxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: more patents on interval arithmetic implementations
>
> Arnold Neumaier schrieb:
> > Arnold Neumaier schrieb:
> >
> > more patents, not yet mentioned in my previous two mails:
> >
> >
> > Several old patents, two by Kulisch, one by Miranker, and one by Rump,
> > are related to items 2 and 3 (accurate sum and inner product) in
> > Section 5.1 of the Vienna proposal:
> >
> > - Circuitry for generating sums, especially scalar products
> > http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4866653/fulltext.html
> >
> > - Circuitry for generating scalar products and sums of floating point
> > numbers with maximum accuracy
> > http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4622650/fulltext.html
> >
> > - Systolic super summation device
> > http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4751665/fulltext.html
> >
> > - Method and circuit arrangement for adding floating point numbers
> > http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4866651/fulltext.html
> >
> As far as I understand the matter all these patents provide hardware
> circuitries to compute sums and dot procducts of floating-point numbers
> exactly. They have been filed more than 20 years ago and thus should all
> be expired. The most relevant techniques are discussed in a more
> colloquial English in my book: Computer Arithmetic and Validity, De
> Gruyter, 2008. I am convinced that these are the fastest techniques to
> compute sums and dot products exactly.
Ulrich,
These are relevant to us in that, being expired patents,
the methods described should never be patented again.
In theory, anyway.
In practice, the patent office has often permitted the
existence of duplicate patents & let them be fought out
in court.
I once went to patent something & found 6 existing patents,
one expired, on the idea. At least 5 of them should not
have been patented but there they were anyway.
For what its worth...
Dan
>
> In contrast to these techniques the following and other papers present
> fast algorithms to compute approximations of hight quality of the sum
> and the dot product of floating-point numbers.
> >
> > There are, however, recent alternative (public and better)
> > implementation techniques by
> > Ogita, Rump, and Oishhi
> > Accurate sum and dot product
> > http://www.ti3.tu-harburg.de/paper/rump/OgRuOi05.pdf
>
> Best regards
> Ulrich Kulisch